Send to Folder in Self Replicating Process

[AlexanderStix]

We have a self replicating process that stores a file in directory structure with a new folder per day, today one process failed with this error “ERROR: 08:05:35.544 [0005] W3001 : Error while executing plugin: W3220 : Error creating directory: C:*redacted*: Error code 183: Eine Datei kann nicht erstellt werden, wenn sie bereits vorhanden ist.”.

This looks very similar to problem mentioned in this thread:

Send To Folder: Error creating directory

Referring to the snapshot, the MainNew is self-replicating process that generating PDF file and reconciliation CSV file. It writes the reconciliation CSV file to a temporary folder named “csv” but I found that it intermediately hits error of creating directory at Send To Folder plug-in. It seem like the Send To Folder plug-in of second thread wrongly detected the “csv” folder hasn’t created by the first thread. What can I do to prevent it hit error? Thank you. [Send%20To%20Folder%20-%20Erro…

I’d like to avoid creating a new process just to create an empty folder every day, which could also cause the same failure for the same reason. Is there an idiomatic way to solve this problem or should I just create a script to handle the folder creation?

[Marten]

@AlexanderStix

I’d like to avoid creating a new process just to create an empty folder every day, […]

Hello @AlexanderStix,

I do not think that there is any better solution other than executing a Workflow process only once at the beginning of each day to create the new folder.

Yes, it is possible to check if a folder exist and to create one when this is not the case by the Run Script Workflow plugin (task) but this means that that the same condition/code will be executed each time the Workflow processs to which the task has been applied gets executed.

[AlexanderStix]

Thing is, if the process that just creates the folder runs at the same time as my regular process I could get the same Problem again. So would need to change the scheduling of my regular process to avoid running in the timeframe where the folder gets created…

I think I’ll create a script to create the folder.

[AlexanderStix]

Well, this is what I came up with:

var fso = new ActiveXObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject");

function create_folder(path) {
    // check if the folder already exists
    if (!fso.FolderExists(path)) {
        try {
            // try to create the folder
            fso.CreateFolder(path);
        } catch(error) {
            // in case of error, check if the folder exists now
            if (!fso.FolderExists(backup_directory)) {
                // rethrow if the folder doesnt exist
                throw error;
            }
        }
    }
}

function create_path(path) {
    var parent_folder = path;
    var current_folder = null;
    var folder_list = []; // list of folders to create

    // Iterate until a existing parent folder is found
    do {
        current_folder = parent_folder;
        folder_list.push(current_folder);
        parent_folder = fso.GetParentFolderName(current_folder);
    } while(!fso.FolderExists(parent_folder) && parent_folder != current_folder);

    // create folders, starting from the last entry
    for (var i = folder_list.length - 1; i >= 0; i--) {
        create_folder(folder_list[i]);
    }
}

var backup_directory = Watch.GetVariable("backup_directory");

create_path(backup_directory);

[Marten]

Hi @AlexanderStix,

Thank you for sharing the code you came up with.

Please note that instead of using throw error; you may want to use something like throw new Error("Error: Place your error message here."); instead. Otherwise, an Exception thrown and not caught error will be logged the moment this line of code gets executed.

[AlexanderStix]

Hi @Marten

Rethrowing the original error like that worked in my tests.

try {
    fso.CreateFolder(backup_directory);
} catch(error) {
    throw error;
}

Should I change it like that? I’d like to preserve the original error message in case the folder couldn’t be created for another reason.

} catch(error) {
    /* in case of error, check if the folder exists */
    if (!fso.FolderExists(backup_directory)) {
        /* rethrow if the folder doesnt exist */
        throw new Error(error.message);
    }
}

[Marten]

Not needed, as I expect that it will result in the same error being logged.

However, you may want to think about the question “Do the Workflow process need to check if a folder exist each time the process gets executed?”. For example, you may want to check each day if the folder for that specific day has already been created and, if so, allocate a value to a global variable. Because in this case you can check the value allocated to this global variable each time the Workflow process gets executed instead.